The Unbelievable True Story of How Actual Human Corpses Ended Up on the Set of ‘Apocalypse Now’

26 October 2026 at 03:15

Apocalypse Now was an extremely troubled production that nearly cost both Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Sheen their lives, but it also came close to featuring a few people who were already deceased. According to the film’s co-producer, Gray Frederickson, rumors that human corpses would be used in the movie were going around early on, and he initially dismissed them as being “ludicrous.” Then a prop guy said something one morning that made it clear this wasn’t just some tall tale.

After Sheen’s wife complained that there were dead rats on the temple set, production designer Dean Tavoularis told Frederickson that they were being kept there for “real atmosphere.” That’s when the aforementioned prop guy chimed in, saying, “Wait till he hears about the dead bodies.” Frederickson was then taken to the prop store, conveniently located behind the tent where everybody ate dinner. Inside, he was shown a row of cadavers laid out on the floor.

The Time Police Found a Room Full of Human Corpses on the Set of ‘Apocalypse Now’

The source of the corpses was a man who supplied bodies to medical schools to use for autopsies. However, it was later discovered that he was a graverobber. “The police showed up on our set and took all of our passports,” Frederickson recalled during a 2009 interview with The Independent. “They didn’t know we hadn’t killed these people because the bodies were unidentified,” he continued. “I was pretty damn worried for a few days, but they got to the truth and put the guy in jail.”

Eventually, a large truck full of soldiers showed up and the bodies were thrown inside. “Where do we take these?” one of the men asked. Frederickson suggested a cemetery, but that was off the table because nobody was willing to pay for their burial. “Oh, don’t worry, we’ll dump them somewhere,” Frederickson was informed, just before they drove away. In the end, he never did find out what became of the mystery cadavers, but thankfully they didn’t wind up in the movie.

The post The Unbelievable True Story of How Actual Human Corpses Ended Up on the Set of ‘Apocalypse Now’ appeared first on vice.

This Is the Only Horror Movie to Ever Win Best Picture at the Academy Awards

VICE US

By: Tony Alpsen

26 October 2026 at 02:50

Horror movies have never gotten much love at the Academy Awards. And even when they do get some attention, it’s rarely in the Best Picture category. To date, only nine films in the genre have been nominated for the highly coveted award: The Exorcist, Jaws, The Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense, Black Swan, Get Out, The Substance, the 2025 version of Frankenstein, and Sinners. To make matters worse, just one of those actually went home with the Oscar.

The lone winner in question was The Silence of the Lambs, which pulled off another extremely rare feat at the 1992 Academy Awards: it swept the so-called “Big Five” categories. For the record, that includes Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay. That evening, the Jodie Foster-Anthony Hopkins classic became the third film in history to accomplish that. It Happened One Night and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest had done so previously (in 1935 and 1976, respectively).

The Oscars Have Snubbed Horror for Decades, but One Movie Broke the Curse

But while the members of the Motion Picture Academy have shown a significant lack of interest in horror over the years, it isn’t the most snubbed genre there is, believe it or not. For instance, no animated or comic book film has ever won Best Picture, though three movies of each kind have received nods. And as far as disaster films go, Titanic remains the single, solitary Best Picture winner. That’s more than we can say for documentaries, which haven’t even been given the opportunity to walk away with the sought-after trophy.

Why Oscars are so elusive for certain genres is unclear. Circling back around to scary movies, it seems like a huge oversight that films like Psycho and The Shining weren’t major winners—in fact, The Shining was nominated for a whopping zero Academy Awards. At the end of the day, very few horror movies have won Oscars since the ceremony began in 1929—some of the more notable examples being Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen, and Alien. However, this past year Frankenstein, Sinners, and Weapons were all surprisingly victorious, so maybe things are finally starting to change.

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A Man Died While Watching ‘The Conjuring 2,’ and Then His Body Mysteriously Disappeared

VICE US

By: Tony Alpsen

26 October 2026 at 02:44

On June 7, 2016, James Wan’s first sequel to 2013’s The Conjuring, fittingly titled The Conjuring 2, had its world premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. 10 days later, two Indian men attending an evening screening of the film in Tiruvannamalai became the subject of a creepy mystery that doesn’t appear to have ever been solved. According to a report from The Times of India, one of the men complained of chest pain during the movie’s climax and fainted.

The 65-year-old was then rushed to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. For whatever reason, the hospital staff asked the man’s friend to bring his body to a medical college on the outskirts of town for postmortem, instead of transporting him themselves. And that’s where things get even eerier. You see, as it turns out, the corpse never arrived at its destination, and we still don’t know why.

The Bizarre Story of a Man Who Died Watching ‘The Conjuring 2,’ and Then Vanished

Evidently, both the living man and his deceased friend’s body disappeared after leaving the hospital. Police were said to have been inquiring with the different hotels in the area to try and figure out who the dead guy was. However, they don’t seem to have had any success identifying either of the two men.

The New York Post noted that the friend was seen hurriedly bringing the body to an auto-rickshaw that the pair had apparently been staying in. No additional information has come to light since. Naturally, this has led to some speculation as to whether or not the story was real, but it’s worth pointing out that it was covered by several reputable news sources at the time.

The post A Man Died While Watching ‘The Conjuring 2,’ and Then His Body Mysteriously Disappeared appeared first on vice.

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The Time Police Found a Room Full of Human Corpses on the Set of ‘Apocalypse Now’

The Oscars Have Snubbed Horror for Decades, but One Movie Broke the Curse

The Bizarre Story of a Man Who Died Watching ‘The Conjuring 2,’ and Then Vanished